Last time I checked Mischka, the god of the old testament had no
problems with killing off people and babies en masse, hardly a
wonderful guide. Funnily enough the Buddhists developed their
own morals and ethics, without his input.

But of course if you look in nature, social species which kill
their own would not survive too well. We also see empathy and
other qualities in various primate species, even pairbonding in
some. So far more likely our ethics have a genetic background,
but of course religious institutions will always try and claim
any brownie points for themselves.

Teaching kids emotional literacy, conflict resolution skills and
similar, would be far more useful in their lives then threatening
them with burning in hell forever.

Infanticide is not fundamentally different then killing an unborn fetus - the severity of the action is on a continuous sliding scale, based on the baby's development and level of awareness.

From a moral standpoint, both are normally wrong, but it should not be illegal to take the life of someone who has not yet come under the protection of the state (the state, being immoral itself, must not be appointed as our spiritual director).

For someone to come under the protection of the state, they should first be introduced to society. This can be done by the person him/herself if they are old enough to understand that action, or in most cases, by his/her parents (one or both). There should be some rite of introduction to society - some parents may prefer to perform this rite before the baby is born, some while in hospital, some later - and some not at all, and some may prefer to wait until the child grows sufficiently to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to become part of society. So long as a child was not introduced to society, his/her legal status would be similar to that of a pet of his/her parents.

Currently in Australia, this rite seems to be the application for the baby-bonus. I think that there should be a more respectful and meaningful way to do it.

western culture today seems very good at efficient rationalisation and mechanistic Skinnerian explanations of how humans behave. We in the modern secular west seem to have been more persuaded by the likes of Margaret Sangster (which led to eugenics, sterilisations and our abortion holocaust industry today) and Peter Singer (justifying infanticide on the basis of insufficient personality or consciousness, but in justifying euthanasia, he was not inclined to include his own mother, was he) than we care to admit. Their ideologies infest our zeitgeist and collective unconscious but 66 years after Hitler's defeat we still admire the fiendish little hasbeen painter for his ruthless focus and efficiency.

Has reason left you all bereft? Abortion is not - and has never been - 'therapeutic', it is murder, full stop. Infanticide. As is euthanasia. It is not some 'merciful release'. This is about the battle between a 'culture of life' versus a 'culture of death', as the late Blessed John Paul II put it.

Slavery was once considered a sound rational economic choice, and even had supporters quoting St Paul. But the buying and selling of human beings - in today's parlance 'human trafficking' - is wrong, evil, and, like torture, can never ever be justified under any circumstances whatsoever.

There is a hierarchy of truth, and if we fail to see even the very basic grounding of it in light of reason, then we can but expect more horrors to come, like human/animal experiments, tailor made babies for IVF, and the sloughing off of the infirm, decrepit, disabled and frail as just so much 'cleansing' of the species to make way for new blood.

Soylent Green may be nearer than we think, and we'd hardly notice.

The average mother in the developed word gives live birth to less than three children in her lifetime. With the depletion of our resources that is more than enough

Over her reproductive period every woman produces over 300 eggs each capable of being fertilised. In the prime of her life almost in every case an aborted fertilised egg can be replaced at some later more suitable time.

Overpopulation rather than underpopulation is the human problem. My Thinking on this subject system convinces me that at least early in a pregnancy a woman has the right to decide if a baby is the best decision for her, particularly if the potential child is genetically defective. Similarly a terminally ill person should be able to determine the time and place of his or her last breath.

Religious bigots should have no rights over another adult’s llife choices.

In effect about 300 eggs in the menstrual cycles of each woman's potential childbearing years are destroyed along with millions of her partner’s sperm.

The sensible limit to abortion is that no one has the right to inflict pain or disadvantage on a conscious personality. The foetus in the first few months is not a conscious personality.

We need to get our priorities right.

All pro-lifers should ask themselves what is their personal priority between unborn foetuses and the 20,000+ children who die each day because we do not feed or house them adequately or did not provide adequate birth control measures to their parents.

Ahhhh Mishka, Your clarification was of emmense hjelp. I've considered your rambling lecture and come to the conclusion it is phoney, as it promotes a fundamental deception... a great big fat lie.

It is a wonderfully fine exposition of you and your attitudes. I find your attitudes disgustingly bigotted and your consciense to be in error if not fundamentally flawed.

In the West our consciense as you claim is not extinguished, it is alive, and well and continues to be nurtured in the finest traditions of our liberal democracies.
In your tyrannical Israel there is ample evidence of no consciense or very limited conscience.

Never mind 'the satisfaction of seeing children whisked to safety.'

Answer these:

What sort of consciense allows the torture and forced confessions, the shackling and handcuffing, the show trials in Israeli military tribunals, where evidence isn't required and the sebsequent automatic jailing of 12 year old Palestinian children who throw stones at armed soldiers, as a show of resistance to an illegal repressive military occupation, and at militarily protected and armed civillian people who are stealling their land?

On many levels we in the west find many aspects of this situation totally abhorrent, against our consciense and fundamentally in complete opposite to our belief structure.

Why don't Jewish Israelis feel the same?

The deception you promote is likening Israeli traditions to those of us westerners.
That is fundamentally flawed and a deceipt.

Western traditions and consciense is built on Christian forgiveness and traditional reasoning.
Israeli traditions are built on the Judean traditions of revenge and atonement.

It is the morality of the Israelis that lacks consciense. It cannot be extinguished as it never exists in the same moral framework as our western consciense.

Our western morality sees us love, have compassion for and forgive our enemy. It is our consciense that ensures that.

As a prime example of our differences compare our occupations of Japan and Germany with those of Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Never mind moving the child from danger why don't you support removing the danger from the Palestinian children.

Yuyutsu, I think you have ably demonstrated what happens when rational thinking is not underpinned by moral principle or at very least the guidance of natural law. You suggest that our offspring should be given ‘pet’ status until the parents decide to either introduce them into society as a person or avail themselves of the legal right to take the life of their child. I am happy to say that I think most Australians have enough of a conscience (even if it is under-exercised) to find this suggestion morally abhorrent. Children are not pets; they are human beings with the same inalienable (human) rights as adults, such as the right to life.

Foyle, in terms of conscience, I would challenge you to consult yours as to whether the right you ascribe to a woman to terminate her pregnancy really ought to over-ride the right of the unborn child to choose life and the right of the father to choose protect his offspring from being killed. I would also remind you that we are not talking about “an aborted fertilised egg”. Abortions are of embryos and foetuses, not zygotes, and most occur at 10-12 weeks when the child is a foetus, which means it is fully-formed – it even has fingerprints. You say that the “sensible” limit to abortion is on the basis of inflicting pain or consciousness, but we do not allow murder of an adult, even if it is painless, and there is evidence that a foetus does feel pain. As to when this sensory ability begins, that is something we cannot determine exactly, which suggests to me that one cannot settle upon an exact point and that erring on the side of caution the only way to be certain one is doing no harm is to not allow it at any point. (cont.)